Black parents say implicit bias bill will carry a cost for all Knoxville students

As Tennessee lawmakers weigh whether to ban mandatory implicit bias training for public educators and staff, Black parents and legislators are sounding the alarm about the harm that a lack of such training can do to students of color and the classroom environment as a whole.

State Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, a Black woman and the lone legislator to vote against the initial legislation in committee, told Knox News the proposal is troublesome. She said the legislation is a continuation of politically charged initiatives that seek to divide people instead of promoting understanding, respect and reconciliation.

“With this bill, it does not allow districts to make the decision for themselves," she said. "The training is something that gives the school systems resources that they feel they need to make sure that their teachers and administrators are better equipped. (This bill) bans them from being able to do it."

Though there are schools in the state that include implicit bias training for staff, none have consequences for an employee who opts out of it.

Akbari told the committee that when she tried to pass legislation that would require implicit bias training, the chairman of the committee said he didn't believe that implicit bias existed even though he had completed a Summer Leadership Program that talked explicitly about implicit bias.

"There are deeply held beliefs that we have based on our upbringing, and how we see the world, and implicit bias training seeks for people to be able to have an opportunity to work through those so that they do not have negative implications for students in discipline and achievement and in their learning opportunity," Akbari said.

"I understand that no one wants to be called racist or sexist or ageist or anything like that. That's not what implicit bias training does."

Lack of training harms all students, but especially Black children

Studies show implicit biases lead to racial disparities in student achievement, learning opportunities and discipline that harm Black students.

In 2020, Black Tennessee students received out-of-school suspensions at more than four times the rate of white students, and received in-school suspensions at nearly double the rate of white students, according to state school report cards that track discipline. Expulsions and placement in alternative schools for Black students were nearly double the rate.

Pamela Campbell, a parent of four African American boys in Knox County Schools, told Knox News that her sons' were relentlessly and often unfairly disciplined.

"Between the time my oldest two boys were in school and my youngest two, I have seen things change in the way relationships are being built with the kids," Campbell said. "They are so quick to do a write-up or send them to the office without taking the time to really get to know these students or what they are going through."

Dametraus Jaggers, who formerly ran for the Knox County Schools Board of Education and a parent who also had a son in Knox County Schools before relocating to Nashville, told Knox News that his son experienced bias in the classroom as early as kindergarten.

"My son was called out by his teacher for behaviors that seem minute. When we asked him if he was the only child in the class doing those things like not raising his hand or talking before his turn he indicated that two other kids, a white girl and a white boy, did the same," Jaggers said. "Yet he was the only one docked for points. We had to address the teacher and principal of the school about the issue, so I wholeheartedly disagree with this bill."

Jaggers told Knox News that the current training for Knox County Schools is inadequate, and leaves out the origins of implicit bias in the first place.

"The content does not speak to the practical ways that implicit bias impacts children based on race, socioeconomic, ability and gender. In addition, it does not account for how implicit bias creates barriers for students with intersecting identities like being Black and having a disability," Jaggers said.

"There ends up being real consequences for implicit bias when you look at the data. Not to mention the ways that systemic oppression has shaped our implicit bias and how they can continue to shape cultures and environments for students when these biases are not checked and managed."

In a study by scholars published in Educational Researcher, teachers’ implicit biases were examined, and the findings confirm hypotheses that connect county-level teacher implicit bias to disparities in achievement and school discipline between Black and white students at the county level.

What does this mean for Knox County students and what does the training look like?

Local school districts, charter schools and the state are in charge of setting personnel policies that could but are not required to include implicit bias training.

The state does not require implicit bias training for employees, but some school districts choose to offer it. Employees in Metro Nashville Public Schools are encouraged to attend implicit bias awareness training, but opting out has no consequences.

Knox County Schools spokesperson Carly Harrington told Knox News that the district offers cultural responsiveness training, which includes a component of implicit bias, and that the training is an expectation for all staffers. Harrington said the district has not had anyone request to opt out but that option would be accommodated.

The training by the Department of School Culture is provided to new staff members during Knox County Schools' New Teacher Academy. It is a 45- to 60-minute-long presentation, and the implicit bias component is roughly 3 minutes.

"The training is offered to staff to help teachers and students build stronger relationships for positive academic outcomes," Harrington said.

Knoxville City Councilwoman Amelia Parker told Knox News the proposed state legislation is pure politics.

Parker was previously an organizer of the Coalition to Stop School Push-Out and served on several committees to implement the recommendations of the Disparities in Education Outcomes Task Force under former Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre.

“There is mixed evidence on the effectiveness of mandatory implicit bias training. When similar trainings were implemented in Knox County Schools, they were not mandatory," Parker told Knox News. "The legislation moving forward is another wasted effort by our state representatives who continue to fail to introduce measures that will actually help Tennesseans rather than give conservative politicians political points in a game that no one is trying to play with them."

Parker added that implicit bias training is only effective when it's part of a larger strategy.

“We need a multilevel strategy devoted to fundamental institutional change. Unless the state plans to ban all mentions of equality in the strategic plans of institutions throughout our state, they are wasting their time with measures like this, which only work to show their lack of understanding on the issue," Parker said.

State Rep. Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, who opposes the bill, told Knox News that implicit bias manifests in people of all races. He is the only Democrat on the K-12 subcommittee and intends to speak out and vote against the legislation when it goes in front of the full committee.

"The implicit bias training simply makes people aware. It says to teachers, 'When I walk in a classroom and I have 25 students, the one with the Afro might not be good or bad; the one with the blonde hair might not be good or bad.' This applies to all people. We all are subject to having bias," McKenzie said.

Implicit bias not limited to race

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, the Republican from Chattanooga who sponsored the bill, told the Senate Education Committee the measure is needed to protect school employees from policies that could lead to disciplinary action or firing. Gardenhire and Rep. Jason Zachary, R-Knoxville, who sponsored the House version of the bill, did not respond to Knox News questions about the legislation.

In a committee hearing, Gardenhire cited a Wall Street Journal article for the reason he proposed the bill.

"The article applied to the nursing profession and some nurses said, 'You know, I'm not biased on these things. I don't want to have to admit that I'm biased or, or racist or anything else and I'm not going to take this training,' and the young lady was fired from her job," Gardenhire said. "Well, I kind of resent the implication that I have bias and I wouldn't want to be forced to take this training especially If I didn't think that that applied to me, and I didn't want somebody trying to impose any predisposed ideas on me. So that's what brought this bill along."

Republican state Sen. Joey Hensley echoed Gardenhire's sentiments.

"Whatever you are, everybody should be treated equally, and shouldn't assume that people have bias for any reason and so I think this is a good piece of legislation," Hensley said.

Corey Hodge, a former Knox County Schools teacher and community advocate, said legislators should know implicit bias isn’t limited to just white people. As a Black male educator, Hodge reflected on his own struggles in the classroom.

“I had to look at my own ignorance. We all have implicit bias at some point in our lives, and it's something I had to learn," Hodge told Knox News.

"I admit that even as a marginalized Black individual, I benefit from being a male. We are afraid of being humble enough to look at ourselves. I had to look at how in the social realm, women are impacted, and LGBTQ individuals. Again, once you learn about implicit bias for what it truly is, that's when we can change the overall environment that we are wanting to provide to all Americans."

Akbari, the state senator from Memphis, points out that everyone has implicit biases they may not recognize.

"And so for me, when I first read a study from Georgetown University, that highlighted that African American teachers were harsher when it came to discipline toward African American students, I thought, you know, this is something that is important for us to address within our school systems because it will impact educational attainment, educational opportunities and the way that children are disciplined," she told Knox News.

The bill defines “implicit bias training” as “a training or other educational program designed to expose an individual to biases that the training’s or educational program’s developer or designer presumes the individual to unconsciously, subconsciously or unintentionally possess that predispose the individual to be unfairly prejudiced in favor of or against a thing, person or group to adjust the individual’s patterns of thinking in order to eliminate the individual’s unconscious bias or prejudice.”

The price of implicit bias

In a report from the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University, researchers found that students of color are punished more often and more severely than their white peers.

In particular, the research shows:

• Many disciplinary actions are based on a subjective component, and ambiguity often activates implicit bias.

• Most schools employ predominately white workforces even as student populations are increasingly diverse, which contributes to harsher discipline of students of color.

• Cultural stereotypes seep into disciplinary decisions, such as implicit associations that Black students are aggressive, criminal or dangerous.

Angela Dennis is the Knox News social justice, race and equity reporter. Email angela.dennis@knoxnews.com. Twitter @AngeladWrites. Instagram @angeladenniswrites. Facebook at Angela Dennis Journalist.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Black parents say implicit bias ban will harm all students